These days it seems some folks are less interested in gaining personal experience, verifying things for themselves, and/or gathering information from field scientists...and more interested in technical papers or studies. Canine social interactions naturally are more clear outside of a lab, but for those hard core "show me your sources" people, here are a few papers on canine social dominance that I have bookmarked. :-)
Dominance in domestic dogs revisited: Useful habit and useful construct Schilder
Dominance in Domestic Dogs: A Quantitative Analysis of Its Behavioural Measures
Rank and dominance matter when trying to teach dogs
The influence of social relationship on food tolerance in wolves and dogs (submissive dogs don’t fight you over resources)
Dominant dogs lead the walk. Akos
Rank affects some components of play Smuts/Bauer
Effects of paedomorphosis on various dog breeds (and dominance-based communication), Goodwin.
Dominance in dogs as rated by owners corresponds to ethologically valid markers of dominance
Dominance in a group of dogs expressed in hard figures (the submission hierarchy)
Wolves cooperate, dogs submit?
Testing the myth: tolerant dogs and aggressive wolves (wolves cooperate better, dogs are less socially skillful and therefore more reliant on ‘rules’)
Wolves lead and dogs follow, but they both cooperate with humans (Range)
Domestic dogs are unusually skilled at reading human social and communicative behavior (likely understand us as packmates even though they know we're not dogs) Tomasello
Dogs stuck in the middle of the canine social ladder show more aggression (it's the betas that squabble, high ranking dogs don't need to)
The associated paper: Elevated aggression is associated with uncertainty in a network of dog dominance interactions
Age graded dominance hierarchies in free ranging dogs (status is most commonly set by birth order, as in wolf pack families)
Dominance in free ranging dogs
How does dominance rank status affect social learning?
Effect of affiliative and agonistic relationships on leadership behaviour
in free-ranging dogs
Dominance relationships in a dog daycare setting (2014)
Affiliation and dominance in daycare dogs. 2016
Dogs' perception of humans as part of their social group:
Cross-species referential signalling events in domestic dogs (Canis familiaris)
Reputation-like inference in domestic dogs
Play and cooperation in relation to the wolf and dog hierarchies
(This may be overthinking it a bit in terms of practical application.) A Game-Theoretical Winner and Loser Model of Dominance Hierarchy Formation
The amazing Jared Diamond on why hierarchy is essential to domestication.
Dyadic bone tests - two dogs one bone
Social structure in huskies similar to that of wolves
Kind of an interesting link on Social Hierarchy in humans...plenty of material that carries over.
Punishment/correction is quite separate from hierarchy, but here's one on that too, since so many folks seem to factor that in.
Here's a nice handout on the treatment protocol for dominance-based aggression, from a veterinary clinic. This is how things used to be handled and it was far more effective than many protocols today, due to a fuller understanding of the above.
If you look for older books, you'd fare better than with the newest trendy materials. Dogs haven't changed in the last few hundred years, unlike human ideologies. However, which studies are financed varies with the times, as anyone working in the sciences is painfully aware!
This also seems like the place for some book recommendations, for better understanding our canine friends and their psychology. :-)
Leon Whitney's Dog Psychology. The Dog Vinci code by John Rogerson. Anything by the Monks of New Skete. Believe it or not, most of Cesar Millan's books... Lessons from the Pack and Cesar's Way were both very enjoyable, and Be the Pack Leader is actually spot-on. (Big difference between Hollywood flair, and actual meaning and connection.) The Serpell book simply titled The Domestic Dog is excellent; it's more technical and the compilation of smaller essays, but it's important background knowledge. The old Scott and Fuller book, Genetics and the Social Behavior of the Dog is still highly educational. Temple Grandin's Animals in Translation. Suzanne Clothier's Bones Would Rain from the Sky - and her web site is full of insights into the canine mind. Of course Roger Abrantes' book on dog language is pretty much the bible for that, and tbh anything in the ethology vein is very helpful if you want to be a well rounded and proficient handler. I genuinely enjoy Eberhard Trumler's writings if you can find them. He had a lot of interesting experiences and worked with dingoes and other primitive canids and crosses. Getting a wide variety of perspectives on dog handling it's very helpful if you're working with packs or difficult dogs. Leslie McDevitt's Control Unleashed covers a lot of good "hands off" psychologically effective techniques. The old Carol Lea Benjamin book "Mother Knows Best" gives a nice dog's eye view. The course at learningdog.us is fantastic, especially when working groups of dogs...it may still be out of print but the new edition is coming.
As far as the relationship itself is concerned, should you choose to be your dog's "ingroup" or pack instead of his outgroup (outside of the social order), there are a fair amount of older books that do a good job of describing that healthy, balanced relationship. The Pack Concept by Uli Koppel and Embracing the Wild in Your Dog are nice examples, as was Be the Pack Leader. There are also plenty of articles online. If you want to go down that rabbit hole, you can start here or here. Your dog will thank you! :-)
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